Our previous feeding strategy was "bowl of kibble on floor, graze as hungry," which has always worked with our other cats, but not with her (she's also hampered by being an inside cat, to be sure).
The current strategy is, instead:
* The kibble bowl goes down for an hour or two around breakfast and around dinner. This has worked fine, except we keep forgetting to put it back up.
* The cats get gooshy food once a day. (The vet suggested that canned food, being more protein, is metabolized better than kibble.)
We've never done the gooshy food thing before, so it's been a bit educational for us, too. Kunoichi apparently had during a previous ownership, though, since the first time we opened one of the tins she made a Kunoichi-shaped hole in all the intervening furniture to get into the kitchen. (Neko was all, "Huh? What? Huh?" But she's learned since.)
This part has worked pretty well — they share a bowl (a plate, actually) with a gooshy-food serving. I think I could probably reuse the plate each meal, in fact, since they clean it until shines. In fact, I think they're beginning to lick the glaze off …
I don't know if Kunoichi has actually lost any weight, but she seems more active, so that's good, and worth the marginal extra effort. But, boy, have they become even more Johnny-on-the-spot whenever any of us enter the kitchen.
(Below courtesy of http://twolumps.net/d/20130107.html)
I haven't been able to get the Two Lumps site to load for weeks…
We've tried gooshy food with Clara, but she doesn't seem interested. I've got a couple more flavors to try out on her, then the big Costco box of it is probably going to get donated if she doesn't take to it. Unfortunately, our schedules don't really permit for limited feeds, so we've taken to just splitting up her rations and not refilling until it's time.
+Brittany Constable I was able to get to it this morning with no problem, FWIW.
Going with reduced doses, rather than reduced feeding time, seems like a legit way to go.
Here's hoping. She's still much closer to Snooch than she is Eben.
Once they have the taste of gooshy food they'll never go back. My cat seems healthier with it too.
Well, they still go after their kibble once the gooshy food is licked homeopathically clean from the plate. But there's no doubt which one they prefer.
So true, says our cat Kona.